Stocking-supporter



(No Model.)

R. S. WILLARD.

STOGKING SUPPORTER. No 344,889. Patented July 6-, 1886 witmaowo Wm STATES arnrwr FFIcE.

RODNEY S. WILLARD, OF ST. ALBANS, VERMONT.

STOCKlNG-SUPPORTER.

El-ECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 344,889, dated July 6, 1886.

Application filed March 9, 1886. Serial No. 194,608. (No model.)

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, RODNEY S. WILLARD, a citizen of the United. States, residing at St. Albans, in the county of Franklin and State of Vermont, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Stocking-Supporters; and I do declare the following to be afull, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters and figures of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

My present invention is an improvement in devices intended to support stockings or other garments in connection with an elastic band, and relates to means for preventing the garment being drawn down into an eye or loop at the lower part of the holder; and it consists in a ring or band surrounding the clasping-wires of the holder immediately above the eye.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 represents a holder provided with my improvement. Fig. 2 represents the same applied to the upper part of a stocking. Fig. 3 is a separate view of the ring, and Fig. 4 rep resents a modified form of the same.

The device is made of a single piece of springsteel, bent in the form shown, and firmly secured at the overlapping ends by soldering or otherwise.

The parallel spring-holding wires a I) hold the garment securely under ordinary conditions; but it is liable,when forcibly pulled, to be drawn down into the eye 0. It' the garment is a thick fabric,it is liable to bepacked in the ring and become difficult to remove without injury, and if the fabric is so light that it does not fill the eye it is drawn out altogether.

It is desirable to prevent accidental removal of the fabric from between the parallel wires, and this is effected by a band, (I, which surrounds them above the eye,and is sufficiently large not to interfere with the elasticity of the wires and the eye, but small enough to prevent slipping off over the eye. A holder having a \i shaped. slot to receive a fold of the stocking, and flattened to produce sharp edges, to obviate the tendency of the garment to slip upwardly out of said slot, was described in a patent granted to \Varren, October 10, 1876. The want of elasticity in this device and the fact that the holdingsurfaces are not parallehand that they terminate in a sharp angle, distinguish it from my device. A holder also is described in Patent No. 301,745, having two eyes or loops, into either of which the garment is liable to be drawn.

My improvement is designed to obviate objectionable features in supporters like those referred to.

Having thus described my invention, what I desire to claim and secure by Letters Patent is- A stocking-supportcr ofthc character specified, provided with parallel spring-holding wires and an elastic eye, and a band loosely surrounding the parallel wires above the eye, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

RODNEY S. WILLARD.

Witnesses:

HOMER E. RoYcE, STEPHEN E. RoYoE. 

